THE TRAIL OF ’98 (1928)

In 1897, the steamer ship Excelsior arrives in San Francisco with news of the discovery of gold in the Klondike, in Canada east of Alaska; also on the ship is entrepreneur Jack Locasto (Harry Carey) who has already made a great deal of money—enough that his reputation has preceded him and gold-digging women are fighting over him--and when the Excelsior returns to Alaska, he's going back for more. As the siren call of a gold rush goes out, we see our cast of characters gathering. In South Carolina, a train engineer lets a young boy get on the train to San Francisco, and even decides he'll abandon the train and go with the lad to the Klondike. In Michigan, Lars (Karl Dane), a big Swedish man, runs away from his nagging wife and considers hopping on the train as it passes by; the engineer encourages him, saying, "Ain't no wives in the Klondike!" and Lars jumps on. In the desert, an old religious guy who calls himself Salvation Jim joins the train, and he and Lars and a devious fellow called The Worm bond. The Bulkeys, a middle-aged couple, want to start a restaurant for the gold prospectors, and young Brena (Delores del Rio), who will work with the Bulkeys, takes her blind grandfather along. As the Excelsior is being loaded up, a stowaway named Larry (Ralph Forbes) jumps on a mule that is being pulled up by a crane onto the ship and manages to evade the crew, finding a friend—and eventually a romantic partner—in Brena. Once they get to Alaska, however, the real journey begins as hundreds of would-be prospectors make their way across snow, ice, mountains and raging rivers to get to the Klondike—as a title card notes, "Into the wilderness of ice, the gold-mad army was dumped."

This silent movie is notable for its recreations of the trials and tribulations of the prospectors, most of whom are not successful. There was some location shooting, though most of the snowy mountain scenes were shot in Colorado in below-freezing temperatures. The scene of the rapids was shot in Alaska and apparently a couple of stuntmen were carried off by the river and never found. An avalanche scene is particularly well done. Though not actually a disaster movie, it does follow some of the conventions of the genre: diverse people and plotlines thrown together, some romance, some melodrama, a little comic relief, and some death and devastation. The climax here does not involve any natural disaster, but an intense fistfight that leads to fiery destruction, and it's a real thriller of a climax. The acting is fine; this late in the silent era, acting had become more naturalistic with less of the exaggerated emotions you would find in earlier films. Forbes and Dane are especially good, as is young Johnny Downs in the limited role of the runaway boy (whose sad fate is presented in an admirably non-melodramatic fashion). Though technically not a talkie, there is, in addition to a musical score, a synchronized soundtrack full of crowd noises and special effects sounds, so it's almost never really "silent"; even folks who don’t think they would like a silent movie might take to this one. Pictured are Forbes and del Rio. [TCM]

THE DUKE IS TOPS (1938)

Singer Ethel Andrews (Lena Horne) is the star of a low-rent traveling show called Sepia Scandals that is touring small towns in the dying days of vaudeville. Her boyfriend, Duke Davis (Ralph Cooper, pictured at left with Horne), the show's producer, gets a visit from talent scout George Marshall—he thinks that Ethel could hit the big time in New York City on her own. Duke hems and haws, but when he is convinced that Marshall's offer would be good for her, he agrees to let her go. She's reluctant to leave him but when he pretends that Marshall has bought her contract and that he's letting her go for the money, she leaves thinking that Duke feels nothing for her. Duke winds up getting a huckster job with Doc Dorando's medicine show, and he's good at selling the fake elixir. Meanwhile, Ethel has proven to be a flop as a solo at the fancy Century Club in Manhattan; someone says of her, "She’s a specialty, not a star!" When Duke finds out, we know he'll try to help her, but the question is, how?

The plot of the B-movie "race" film (i.e., with an all-black cast) is pretty standard showbiz-romance stuff. It was shot in 10 days and looks it. But it's important for one reason: it's Lena Horne’s first movie. But what's interesting is that Horne isn't herself yet, not the screen star she would become. She’s attractive but not beautiful, presentable but not glamorous, and a little awkward before the camera. Her voice is certainly fine but it's not the versatile instrument we came to know. What happened between this film in 1938 and her first starring role (in CABIN IN THE SKY) in 1943 was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which signed her up and undoubtedly put her through its "star school" like it did with Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds and countless other starlets that MGM wanted to make into stars. On its own, this movie is best enjoyed for its specialty numbers: a vigorous dance workout from Rubberneck Holmes, a cute production number called "Blackberry Baby," and especially for a performance by a four-man band called Cats and the Fiddle, pictured right, of a song called "Killin' Jive"—not only does it sound a lot like a 30s Ink Spots song called "That Cat is High" (later performed by the early Manhattan Transfer), it's about the same subject matter. Sample lyrics: "When you're high, man/You're sailin', man/You'll be so mellow/Just like a jello…When you smoke that killin' jive." Ralph Cooper (known for a time as the "Dark Gable") gives the movie's best performance as Duke (despite what I assumed for years, this movie has nothing to do with Duke Ellington), and Laurence Criner is fun as the trickster Doc Dorando. It's worth seeing for fans of 30s B-films, but don't expect Horne to be the star she became a few years later. [TCM]

HAROLD TEEN (1934)

It's graduation time at Covina High School and Harold Teen, a grad from last year who has a job at the local paper as a cub reporter (and general errand runner), has been asked to give an inspirational speech to the new grads while they're having their class picture taken. He manages to double-talk his way through the speech, but he's really there to give his girlfriend Lillums Lovewell a bottle of perfume that he spent so much on, he's missed his car payment, and the car is repossessed right there at the school. Lillums loves the perfume, but she drops the bottle and it shatters in the gutter. In scenes at the local malt shop and other places in town, we meet the rest of the characters: his short buddy Shadow, his silver-tongued rival Lilacs, a fat guy named Tiny, and Lillums' folks, who are in danger of losing their house due to the closing of the bank. Enter new bank president H.H. Snatcher and his sex kitten daughter Mimi. Harold interviews Snatcher for the paper, but gets lightheaded from smoking a cigar that Snatcher offers him. For some reason, Snatcher takes a liking to the boy, and he takes more than a liking to Lillums, which disgusts Mimi—who herself makes a play for Harold. However, Pa Lovewell thinks it might be OK if Snatcher were to marry Lillums since the banker might save their mortgage. When Mimi starts up a local Junior Set social group to put on a summer show, she gets Broadway choreographer Ed Rathburn to help out—the very Ed Rathburn from whom Harold has been taking dancing lessons by mail. This sets the stage for Lillums to break up with Harold because of Mimi, then decide she wants him after all. The stage show climaxes with a "Collegiate Wedding" scene during which all is set right.

Harold Teen was a long-running comic strip centered on the title teenager, and as anyone with a passing knowledge of 20th century pop culture will figure out, Harold is a forerunner of Archie Andrews. Lillums is Betty, Shadow is Jughead, Mimi is Veronica, Lilacs is Reggie, Snatcher is Mr. Lodge (if Lodge had designs on Betty), and both strips have a malt shop owner named Pops. This movie is an interesting novelty, combining small-town teen shenanigans with musical numbers influenced by Busby Berkeley, and the two elaborate production numbers are the high points of the film. The finale wedding number is fine, but an earlier song at the malt shop ("How Do I Know It's Sunday?") is even better. There is cute use of period teen slang: calling a pretty girl "lamb’s lettuce," referring to a friend as "palsy-walsy," and using the all-around brush off, "Aw, go peel a banana!" I also enjoyed some clever dialogue. Clumsy dancing boy to his irritated partner: "Honey, who's gonna take you home tonight?" Partner: "The undertaker if you don't stop squeezing me!" Another dancing boy: "Do you like to dance with French heels?" Girl: "I've never met any!" And the general observation, "Girls with pep give me the jitters!"

The acting is just as good as it needs to be. Hal Le Roy, as Harold (top left), was a tall, skinny Broadway dancer whose movie career never took off, but he's fine here; not too handsome, not too smart, but sweet enough to win Lillums' heart by the end. Shadow is played by Eddie Tamblyn, pictured with Le Roy, father of Russ Tamblyn (Riff in West Side Story). Familiar supporting players include Chick Chandler as Lilacs, Douglas Dumbrille as Snatcher, Guy Kibbee and Clara Blandick as the Lovewells, and an understated Hugh Herbert as Rathbrun. This is sprightly B-budget fun. A sequel might have worked, except the film ends with Harold and Lillums getting married for real: imagine the Archie comic books continuing with Archie married to Betty. Best not to go there. [DVD]

THE POWER (1968)

At a research center in California, George Hamilton is heading a space project looking into how much pain a man—potential astronauts—can stand. But during a committee meeting, it becomes clear that one of the committee members may well possess a strong mental power, strong enough to cause objects to move simply by force of mind. When one committee member is found dead, spun to death in a huge centrifuge, the idea comes up that the person with this power may be a kind of "superman" using his powers to disrupt the research. After another death, suspicion points to Hamilton, so he begins investigating to clear his own name. What begins as an interesting science-fiction story turns into a run-of-the-mill, episodic mystery/thriller, albeit with some odd touches here and there, like a scene in which toy soldiers appear to come to life. Director Byron Haskin gives the film a nice 60s sheen. The acting is lackluster all around except for Hamilton and, in a small role as a menacing creep, Aldo Ray. Other players include Suzanne Pleshette, Michael Rennie, Richard Carlson and Gary Merrill. The editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Forrest J. Ackerman, has a cameo. Pictured is George Hamilton. [TCM]

APOLOGY FOR MURDER (1945)

Wealthy businessman Harvey Kirkland is engineering a merger with a company run by his old friend Craig Jordan. Jordan's not happy about it, and in fact is overheard making a veiled threat of violence against Kirkland, but he realizes he has to accept the offer. Reporter Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont, at right), who has a kind of love-hate relationship with his editor, comes to the Kirkland residence hoping to get an interview and is rebuffed, but he winds up flirting with Toni (Ann Savage), a young woman whom Kenny assumes is Kirkland's daughter. After a one-afternoon stand, she tells him she's actually Kirkland’s wife, frustrated over being stuck in a bad marriage. The old man fights her attempts at divorce, so she tells Kenny she's decided to kill her husband, but she needs Kenny to help her. Initially shocked, Kenny soon warms to the idea and the two engineer an elaborate plan to kill him and make it look like his car went sliding off a treacherous mountain road. After some complications, the two pull it off, but when the police discover that there are no tire tracks and the ignition in the car was off, they suspect foul play. So does Kenny's editor.

Though it may not be crystal clear from that summary, you can tell by the 10-minute mark that this is an unauthorized remake of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, the classic film noir made the year before. Young totsy wants to get rid of frustrating husband, seduces lust-dumb guy into helping her, then more or less dumps him while his boss begins to put two and two together. Here, the dumping is more explicit—after the murder, Toni seduces a lawyer to help her get a better deal out of her dead husband's estate—and an innocent man (Kirkland’s caretaker) winds up being found guilty of the murder, putting more pressure on the typically decent Kenny to find a way out of the nightmare he's in. This film even copies the tic from the earlier film of having Kenny's boss lighting Kenny's cigarettes for him. Hugh Beaumont is a B-movie Fred MacMurray (and both men would find lasting fame playing sit-com dads on TV, Beaumont on Leave it to Beaver, MacMurray on My Three Sons. Oddly, in this movie, Beaumont’s editor is named Ward, which would be the name of Beaumont's character on Beaver.) At one hour, this moves fairly quickly, but the constant callbacks to Double Indemnity don't do this film any favors. Beaumont is OK, though Savage (known for her hardened femme fatale part in DETOUR) operates at half-strength, diminishing some of the impact of the film. It's kind of fun, but ultimately disappointing. [YouTube]

THE WHITE TOWER (1950)

A couple of years after WWII, the young and lovely Alida Valli arrives in the small Swiss town of Kandermatt where her father, a famous mountain climber, died trying to climb a famously formidable mountain dubbed The White Tower. She is in town to attempt to climb it herself but her old friend (Oscar Homolka), a mountain guide, tries to talk her out of it, saying that she won't get enough locals to make up a good climbing team. But a group of men staying the same inn where Valli stays eventually agree to head up the mountain with her, some just to carry packs and stay at base camp, some to go all the way. The group includes a middle-aged alcoholic writer (Claude Rains) who is working on finishing a novel but whose wife constantly belittles him; an older scientist (Sir Cedric Hardwicke); an athletic German climber (Lloyd Bridges) whom we discover still subscribes to the Nazi ideology of the 'superman'; the faithful Homolka; and a handsome American bomber pilot (Glenn Ford) who was shot down over Switzerland during the war and has returned as something of a drifter. Of the group, Ford is the most reluctant, but he is attracted to Valli and decides to go because he's jealous of Bridges' attentions to Valli. Once they get going, however, various concerns (Rains' health and the booze he's brought along) and conflicts (American vs. Nazi—when they take a vote about slowing down their ascent, Bridges says dramatically, "To rest is not to conquer") weigh them down almost as much as the supplies they've brought. There is also fog and bad weather to contend with, not to mention the very dangerous final passage to the top.

I had avoided this film over the years because I run hot and cold on Glenn Ford; I tend to like him in his earlier films, but not so much later on. But this one, coming not long after his breakout role in GILDA, is one of his better performances. His character arc resembles that of Bogart's in CASABLANCA—at first, he seems passive, not caring much about others, or even much about himself, but the trip up the mountain changes him. Ford was in his early 30s when he made this, and he's about as attractive as he ever was in movies; both he and Alida Valli get lots of glamour close-ups throughout (she is billed as just Valli, like Garbo). The two make a nice pair, and the rest of the cast is strong, though Rains doesn’t get many opportunities to shine until his final scene. Bridges is especially good as the hunky Nazi. The movie looks great in Technicolor. There was quite a bit of location shooting in the French Alps, though it's clear that the shots of our cast while climbing were filmed in a Hollywood studio. Still, the mix of studio and location footage mostly works well. One online reviewer notes that some of the actors (Homolka and Rains in particular) look like they could barely climb a flight of stairs let alone a treacherous mountain, but we suspend our disbelief. Overall, an enjoyable if fairly predictable adventure melodrama—though the climax may take you a bit by surprise—worth watching if for no other reason for the scenery. Ford and Valli are pictured at top, and a glamour shot of Ford is at right. [TCM]

FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)

A space ship with a crew led by Commander Adams (Leslie Nielsen) has been sent from Earth to the planet Altair IV to check on a colony of scientists that landed there some twenty years ago. As they approach, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) contacts them by radio and warns them against landing, but Adams feels he must fulfill his mission. They discover that Morbius and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) are the only settlers left—aside from Robby, a robot built by Moribus as a butler, cook and assistant—the others having been killed by what Morbius describes as a "planetary force." Adams and his men decide they must stay until they get further instructions from Earth, so Morbius explains his research: he's discovered the science of a long extinct race called the Krell who reached a remarkably advanced stage in technology but were decimated by the same force that destroyed Morbius' fellow scientists. Altaira is fascinated by the men, as the men are by her, and soon she and Adams are something of an item. But some invisible being is slipping into Adams' ship at night, vandalizing and eventually killing a couple of crewmen. Does Morbius know more than he’s telling about the planet?

This is considered a sci-fi classic, and is one of the few big-budget science fiction films attempted by Hollywood until 1968 when the game-changing 2001: A Space Odyssey was released. The movie looks great, with intricate sets and colorful backgrounds, both on the exterior of the planet and in Morbius' house and lab. The ultimate explanation for the destructive force is interesting, and it's fun to find the similarities between this and Shakespeare's The Tempest (Moribus and Altaira = Prospero and Miranda, Robby the Robot = Ariel, etc.). But much of the movie is just plain boring; the middle third feels like particularly heavy padding until we get to the climax. The acting is lackluster; Nielsen isn't especially heroic and Pidgeon is wooden. The supporting players, including Richard Anderson and Earl Holliman, add little. But the lovely Anne Francis (pictured with Nielsen) does a nice job putting some life into her "naïve untouched girl" character. When the invisible force becomes visible, it looks disappointingly like a Disney cartoon character (at least one Disney animator was on the special effects crew). Instead of a conventional musical score, there are electronic bleeps and blops—it's effective for a while, but wears out its welcome by the end. Worth watching as a reminder of where later sci-fi came from, and for its visuals. [DVD]

THE GIRL FROM MEXICO (1939)

Advertising executive L.B. Renner has promised a client that he'll find a sparkling new exotic singer for his radio show. Renner sends Dennis (Donald Woods) down to Mexico on a talent hunt. He has no luck until his car breaks down in the village of San Proximo and he has an encounter with a high-spirited singing waitress named Carmelita (Lupe Velez). She accidentally flings a lump of wet laundry at him, and when he flings it back, it knocks her into a fountain. When he goes to help her, she pushes him in, and, of course, we know that since they’ve "met cute," they'll soon be in love. But he has a snooty fiancée, Elizabeth, who lies to him and indulges in what we would now call "day drinking" with her high society buddies—we're not supposed to like them, but honestly, it seemed like they were having fun and I would have liked a couple more scenes with them. Dennis has promised Carmelita's family that he'll keep an eye on her back in the Big Apple, and he has her stay at his place, along with his Uncle Matt (Leon Errol), who bonds with Carmelita and takes her for a big day on the town out to ball games and wrestling matches. She enjoys herself so much, she cheers herself hoarse and fails the audition for the radio show, but she is hired as a singer by wrestler Mexican Pete for his club, and another client of Dennis's agency takes a liking to Carmelita, which makes Dennis realize that he's in love with her and not Elizabeth. But there are still a few more bumps on the road to bliss for Dennis and Carmelita.

This B-movie screwball romance became a surprise hit leading to the "Mexican Spitfire" series of movies centered on the married life of Dennis and Carmelita. Lupe Velez made a name for herself in these films, though the troubled actress committed suicide in 1944 at the age of 36. This movie, though enjoyable at times, does not make me want to see any of the other Spitfire films. A little of Velez goes a long way—she comes across like Lucille Ball on amphetamines. No one uses the word "spitfire" here, though she is referred to as a "firecracker" and a "pepper pot." Her outsized energy overwhelms poor Donald Woods playing her rather docile and naïve foil—he is reduced to standing around looking exasperated. Leon Errol is a little more able to stand up to Velez's antics, and indeed, he remained her co-star throughout the Spitfire series even as Woods was replaced after a couple of entries. My favorite line, from Velez: "Love makes your heart go bumpity-bumpity-bump, like a little baby falling down the stairs!" [TCM]

THE INSIDE STORY (1948)

In the small town of Silver Creek, Vermont, Charles Winninger, worried that in these post-war days, people are beginning to hoard money, tells us a kind of "Our Town" narrative set in 1933 when hoarding was in fashion because of the Depression. Our characters include inn keeper Gene Lockhart; his socially conscious daughter (Marsha Hunt); a struggling artist (William Lundigan) on whom Hunt has a crush; rich widow Florence Bates who runs the local mills, most of which have been shut down; and down-on-his-luck lawyer Robert Shayne and his wife Gail Patrick. Everyone needs money. Lockhart owes the local grocer who threatens to cut off his supply of food for his restaurant; Lundigan owes Lockhart months of back rent; the grocer owes money to Bates; Shayne is about to lose his business due to lack of clients; Patrick has been having her portrait done by Lundigan as a surprise gift to Shayne but can no longer afford to pay for it. In the midst of all these troubles, a courier (Roscoe Karnes) arrives at the inn to deliver $1000 to a farmer who is supposed to pick it up but is delayed due to his wife giving birth. When Karnes decides to leave the money in the inn's safe for the day, the escapades begin. Lockhart finds the money and assumes it's Lundigan’s back payment, so he gives it to the grocer, who gives it to Bates, who gives it to Shayne, and so on. To say nothing of the two shady characters who spend the afternoon at the inn, one of whom is a safe cracker.

This is a cute little comedy which was intended as propaganda telling citizens that it's in everyone's best interest if money is kept in circulation through banks, not hoarded. This message is fairly heavy-handed—the director, Allan Dwan, is no Frank Capra when it comes to making message movies—but it can be ignored and the movie can be enjoyed as a fun character-driven comedy with elements of melodrama (one off-screen character commits suicide and an on-screen character seriously contemplates it) and farce (a husband tries to catch his wife in an adulterous situation, but it's not what it seems). The cast mostly consists of very able supporting actors. The best here are the older ones (Lockhart, Winninger, Bates); if the younger bunch (including Lundigan, Hunt and Patrick) don't shine as much, they still give respectable performances. Allen Jenkins is fun as a friendly gangster and Will Wright gives the grocer a welcome hard edge. One interesting thread given the era: it's the women who prove more able and have to give the men a hand to get through their rough times. This doesn't show up much but is worth looking out for. Pictured are Hunt and Lundigan. [TCM]

KRAKATOA, EAST OF JAVA (1969)

Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover, or a movie by its title. This one is notorious for getting it wrong right at the start: the volcano Krakatoa, which famously erupted in 1883, killing over 30,000 people and affecting worldwide climate for years, is actually west of Java. Things mostly go downhill from that title, though viewers who hang around for the climax will be rewarded by some good disaster effects. The story on which the effects are hung has potential. Maximilian Schell is the captain of a salvage ship which is headed out from Java to find the wreck of a ship rumored to have been carrying a small fortune in pearls. Diane Baker, Schell's mistress, is the motivating force for the search: the pearls belonged to her estranged husband, and he and her son were also on the ship, and she'd like to know what happened. She's also recovering from a recent mental breakdown and is emotionally fragile. Along to help with the search: a father-son team of balloonists (Rossano Brazzi and Sal Mineo), a scientist (John Leyton), an aging deep sea diver (Brian Keith) with weakening lungs and an addiction to laudanum, his mistress, and four female Japanese pearl divers who are experienced in holding their breaths a long time. Last but not least, there's a group of convicts in chains whom Schell has been forced to accept and drop off on a prison island. One of the prisoners is a former crew member of Schell's and Schell gives him a certain amount of freedom, which, of course, he comes to regret. Of course, all the plot lines are disrupted by the explosion of Krakatoa.

This was a flop in its day and is rarely seen or discussed now, except to make fun of its erroneous title. To me, it feels very much like a dry run for the disaster movie boom of the 70s (The Poseidon Adventure, Airplane, The Towering Inferno). Like those films, it's got: a varied group of characters thrown together with bonding between some and friction between others; the group eventually in isolation; a build-up of warning signs of dangerous conditions ahead; a lengthy special effects-filled climax. What it doesn't have is an all-star roster of actors (no disrespect meant to the actors, but when your biggest names are Schell and Mineo, you're not in the same league as something like Inferno with Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, and Steve McQueen). It also has a slow-moving, muddled plot with not enough interesting separate strands—very little is done with Keith's addiction, and I have no idea why Brazzi and Mineo's characters are present except for a 2-minute sequence of their balloon almost going down into the volcano. Schell, Keith and Mineo are good, the rest of the cast less so, and Keith provides some nice burly eye candy--he'll make you forget his Uncle Bill persona from the 60s TV show Family Affair. The pre-CGI-era volcano effects are pulled off well with an adequate amount of death and destruction. The version of this I saw on Amazon Prime was the edited reissue (titled Volcano), with almost 30 minutes cut, including what sounds like a jaw-droppingly bad musical number involving nuns and orphans. The movie was not terrible, but I'm not sure it's worth tracking down the full-length version just for that song. Pictured at top right are Mineo and Brazzi; below are Keith and Barbara Werle. [Amazon Prime]

THE QUIET AMERICAN (1958)

Saigon in 1952 during the Indochinese War is an unsettled place. There are constant skirmishes between the French colonial rulers and the Communists, and the Cai-Dao religious sect seems to be positioning itself as a "third force" in the conflict. A British reporter named Fowler (Michael Redgrave) and his Vietnamese mistress Phuong (Giorgia Moll) become friendly with a new arrival to the city, a fresh-faced young man whom we only come to know as the American (Audie Murphy), a representative from a humanitarian aid organization. He seems a bit naïve but well-intentioned, though soon, Fowler begins to suspect that the American may actually be part of a secret subversive group. When explosions rock a street demonstration, Fowler is led to believe by others that some plastics the American has imported have been used to make the bombs. Meanwhile, the American becomes infatuated with Phuong, who is waiting for Fowler to ask his wife back in England for a divorce, but he won't make a move on her as long as Fowler is in the picture. When the wife refuses to divorce for religious reasons, Fowler lies to the two of them and claims that a divorce decree is imminent. Eventually, Fowler's paper reassigns him to England; his bluff is called and Phuong makes plans to marry the American. Certain that the American is up to no good, and jealous that Phuong is leaving him, Fowler betrays the American to a Communist spy who plans to take decisive action against the meddling American. But when the truth comes out, it appears that Fowler has misread the political situation.

It's not a spoiler to note that the American winds up dead—the film begins with Fowler being asked to identify his body, found on a river bank at night during New Year celebrations. The story, told in flashback, concerns itself with the how and why of his death, and the moral decline of the reporter. Readers of the Graham Greene novel this film is based on complain that the film softens the book's political stance against American involvement in Vietnam, and to some degree, this is true. But the movie doesn’t exactly let anyone off scot free—not Fowler, not the American, not the Communists, not Phuong, and not even the sly and friendly-seeming Dominguez (Fred Sadoff), a associate of Fowler's who is not as harmless as he appears. If you're not a Greene purist, I would highly recommend this film. At times, it feels like it could have been made recently (there was a remake in 2002 with Michael Caine of which I only have a vague memory, but it apparently does stick closer to the novel). It's a period film and it was shot in classy-looking black & white so its look hasn't aged much. The politics of the situation are downplayed so this is basically a love triangle melodrama told through the frame of a murder mystery. Redgrave is excellent as the reporter as is the Italian actress Giorgia Moll who never comes off as a caricature—I was quite surprised to discover that she was not Asian. Audie Murphy, a famous WWII hero in real life who mostly acted in B-westerns, is surprisingly good. Some critics find him a bit too lightweight, but I think he does a great job keeping viewers off-balance as to what motivates his character. He's baby-faced handsome but with a slightly cynical, even decadent, cast about him at times, like an overgrown Boy Scout that you can't quite trust. Solid direction from Joseph Mankiewicz (All About Eve, Cleopatra). Highly recommended. Pictured top right is Murphy; below are Redgrave and Sadoff. [TCM]

A WOMAN'S FACE (1941)

In a Swedish courtroom, Anna Holm (Joan Crawford) is on trial for murder. As a small group of people testify, we piece together her story. At a rustic tavern in the woods, a regular patron, the once wealthy Torsten Barring (Conrad Veidt), is hosting a small party, but when the time comes to pay up, he is told that they can no longer extend him credit. Torsten has a private conversation with Anna, who tries but fails to hide her scarred face (suffered as a child in a house fire that her drunken father set). However, he barely seems to notice her disfigurement; they hit it off and she extends him credit. We find out that Anna is the leader of a blackmail ring involving the workers at the tavern; Torsten, whom Anna has fallen for, becomes a partner in crime. He gives her a packet of love letters he filched from a married woman, Vera, to her lover. Anna goes to Vera's house to ask for money for the letters, but the sudden arrival of Vera's husband Gustaf (Melvyn Douglas) causes a glitch. He happens to be a plastic surgeon and he whisks her off to the country to use some radical techniques to cure her. Weeks later, when the bandages come off, Anna is beautiful and has a new lease on life. When Anna returns (taking a new name, Ingrid), she gets involved in Torsten's plot to get his hands on a sizeable inheritance. The sticking point: a four-year old stands in his way. Anna reluctantly agrees to become part of a murder plot by becoming governess to the child, and eventually killing him in a staged accident. But when Gustaf shows up (still married to his cheating wife), Anna gets cold feet, and an entanglement begins that ends in the death that Anna is accused of causing.

This is a grand entry in the women's melodrama genre so popular in the 1940s, the genre in which Joan Crawford excelled (HUMORESQUE, MILDRED PIERCE). And though Crawford is fine in the role, what makes this movie fun for me is the supporting cast, primarily the trio of con artists working with Crawford: Connie Gilchrist, who went on to a long career playing cooks and housekeepers—most notably as Norah Muldoon in AUNTIE MAME—gets a role here a bit bigger and juicier than usual; Donald Meek and Reginald Owen round out the group. Sadly, though the three get quite a bit of screen time early on, by the time Crawford loses her scars she also loses her gang. Marjorie Main is delightful as a housekeeper—physically, she's unrecognizable, but she can’t hide her voice. Veidt, of course, is always wonderful as the man you love to hate—and he has a great scene with Crawford before the climactic party scene (which leads to a nice nighttime sleigh chase)—but he rather overpowers Douglas, ostensibly the male lead. Osa Massen is good as Douglas's cheating wife, and other welcome faces include Albert Basserman, Henry Daniell and George Zucco. Recommended. Pictured are Crawford and Douglas. [TCM]

WIRETAPPER (1955)

As WWII winds to an end, Alice (Georgia Lee) is anxiously waiting for her fiancé Jim Vaus (Bill Williams) to come home. He's stationed stateside but keeps getting transfers from one place to another and can't seem to get a furlough to come home. As we find out, the truth is that Jim is in a military jail for stealing equipment and has his letters to Alice smuggled out to be mailed from various locations. But after V-J Day, Jim is pardoned and given a lecture by a chaplain who knows about Jim's letters and urges him to tell Alice the truth when he gets home—but when he's face to face with her, he can't bring himself to do so. Still, their reunion is happy and he goes into business as an electrical engineering consultant. Business is quite slow at first, but when he performs a minor repair job for a lawyer named Rumsden, he discovers by accident that Rumsden's house is bugged. It turns out that Rumsden is a lawyer for gangsters, and he quickly hires Jim to do a wiretapping job for him on a woman trying to muscle into the local prostitution ring. The cops catch him doing it, but because the tap provides enough info to jail the madam, they turn a blind eye. Soon, Jim is working for other shady characters, his "business" becomes a success, and he and Alice (whom he keeps in the dark about his clients as long as he can) get married. Eventually, he tells Alice about his past and she's forgiving, but as his jobs become more numerous, he neglects his wife, even missing the birth of their first child. After pulling off a scam in which Jim delays the ticker-tape results of horse races to fix some bets, Jim wants to leave the rackets, especially with Alice pregnant again, but he finds that difficult to do—until Alice drags him into a Billy Graham revival tent.

Bet you weren’t expecting Billy Graham as a deus ex machina at the climax. I wasn't either, and it doesn't play very well, even though this movie is based on a memoir by the real Jim Vaus, so perhaps that's what really happened. Up to that point, religion has barely been mentioned, making the ending feel even stranger. Overall, it's a so-so B-crime movie with film noir elements—primarily the conflicted hero—but with nothing interesting going on in terms of style or acting. Bill Williams is fine in the lead, and Ric Roman (as a gangster) and Stanley Clements (as a lesser thug) are good in support. But Georgia Lee is pretty terrible as the wife, accentuating Alice's whiny clinginess and squeaky-clean personality, giving the character no shadings at all. As far as the issue of the noir hero, Jim has been cutting moral corners all his life, but Williams plays him as a pleasant and not terribly thoughtful person, not really all that conflicted about how he makes a living. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, the film was originally shown at churches and at revivals, but it did eventually receive a theatrical release. Mostly recommended to fans of 50s B-movies; it's competently made and hardly painful viewing but it’s also not all that memorable . . . until Billy Graham appears. [YouTube]

A GIRL, A GUY, AND A GOB (1941)

This rom-com has a meet-cute opening: at the opera, Dot (Lucille Ball) and her working-class family are occupying the box seats of wealthy Stephen (Edmond O'Brien) and his snooty fiancée Cecilia. Dot has the tickets in hand and after some fuss, Stephen's party angrily leaves, after which Dot finds out that her brother had actually found the tickets which Stephen had lost and used them for his family. The next day, Dot is assigned as a temp worker to, you guessed it, Stephen. Meanwhile, we meet Dot's boyfriend, the "gob" (sailor) of the title, Claudius J. Cup, who goes by Coffee Cup; he's a friendly, rambunctious guy who fits right in with Dot's eccentric family. When Dot, Stephen and Coffee Cup wind up together on a streetcorner, they get in the middle of a brawl; Stephen is knocked out and is taken back to Dot's family's apartment where he recovers. Our trio becomes downright chummy, even as Dot feels romantic conflict: she genuinely likes Coffee Cup even as she begins having feelings for the buttoned-up Stephen who seems to be enjoying becoming a little more carefree. If you think this sounds a little like a Frank Capra film (specifically, You Can't Take It With You), you'd be right, though this is less sentimental and much less polished than the average Capra work. One thing I liked about this is that I couldn't quite predict whether it would be the Guy or the Gob that the Girl would up with. Both are likeable and neither does anything to make Dot angry. Sometimes you can tell by the billing—in this case, that would mean first-billed George Murphy. Sometimes you can tell by looks—in this case, O'Brien is the more handsome man. All three leads are fine: Murphy's full of piss and vinegar, O'Brien is distractedly dazzled by Ball and her family, and Ball gives one of her best movie performances. Henry Travers gives fine support as a business partner of O'Brien's, and Franklin Pangborn is fun in the small role of a nervous pet shop owner. Harold Lloyd produced the film which includes a couple of rowdy slapstick scenes. Not quite a classic but very entertaining. Pictured are O'Brien, Ball and Murphy. [TCM]

TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (1962)

Kirk Douglas is a former hot-shot actor who has spent some time in a sanitarium after a breakdown, and is offered a role in a movie being shot in Italy by his former friend and director (Edward G. Robinson). Their relationship is fraught, to say the least, by past complications, and when Douglas arrives in Rome, he finds the part is no longer available. But the movie has to be finished in two weeks or the producer will take the film away from Robinson, so Douglas is hired to supervise the dialogue dubbing sessions. Further complications ensue. For starters, Douglas begins dating Dahlia Lavi, unaware that the movie’s young and sullen leading man (George Hamilton) is also interested in her. Douglas' ex-wife (Cyd Charisse) also happens to be in town and wants Douglas to sleep with her despite her marriage to a Greek tycoon. Robinson is carrying on a fling with a younger woman, and his wife (Claire Trevor) is infuriated that news of the affair has been leaked to the press. Then Robinson has a heart attack and Douglas finishes the film, for which Robinson ends up resenting him. The climax comes when a manic Douglas takes Charisse on a wild, almost suicidal nighttime car ride around Rome. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, this melodramatic film has become a minor camp classic thanks to its soap opera plot and wild overacting by almost everyone (especially Claire Trevor who shrieks so often, you want someone to tie her up and gag her and send her to another movie). Douglas is OK, and Hamilton is interesting in a very un-Hamilton-like role. The film sure looks good, however, with beautiful sets and costumes, and some nice behind-the-scenes shots of moviemaking. There's a weird Italian pop song that seems to be about Dracula in the background of one scene. Often considered to be a sequel to Minnelli's THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, a 1952 movie about moviemaking with Douglas, but there is no real story connection. Pictured are Trevor and Robinson. [DVD]

FOREVER AMBER (1947)

It may be unfair to compare this historical romance-melodrama set in 17th century England to Gone with the Wind, but if the shoe fits… Like GWTW, this is based on a best-selling novel set in the past, has a woman at the center of the story who develops a somewhat unhealthy romantic obsession for a man, works herself up in society over a period of years, and loses the love of her life in the end. In 1644, with a civil war raging against King Charles I, an orphaned infant girl is left with a Puritan family. Years later, after the monarchy is restored, young Amber, now an attractive teenager (Linda Darnell), grows restless with her situation—about to be married off to a poor farmer whom she doesn't love. She rebels by wishing for better, but her father threatens to whip her, saying, "Vanity is Satan at work in the female soul." When a band of cavaliers, having successfully fought to put King Charles II on the throne, pass through her village on the way to see the King in London, Amber falls for the dashing Bruce Carlton (Cornel Wilde) and runs off, hoping he'll take her with him. He doesn't though his buddy Lord Harry (Richard Greene) is quite taken with her. Bruce has a mistress in London, but she is also a mistress to the King, so there are problems. When Amber follows the men on her own, Bruce finally gives into her charms, but eventually leaves her to go on another privateering mission. She vows to climb the class ladder so eventually Bruce will marry her for her position, but long before that can happen, Amber undergoes a series of trials: joining a robbery gang, spending time in prison, giving birth to Bruce's son, and getting swindled out of what money she has managed to get. But like Scarlett O'Hara, Amber is not inclined to give up and she marries for convenience and even becomes a mistress to the King (George Sanders) before meeting up with Bruce again who, unfortunately, is married and ready to head to America.

This is not as long as Gone with the Wind, and not as well acted, but it's shot in gorgeous Technicolor which has been beautifully restored, so it's always a treat to look at. It's also very episodic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it makes it feel a bit like an adventure serial, albeit a high-budget one. There was a big search for an actress to play Amber, and while Darnell (pictured above) is a colorful beauty, she's not an especially versatile actor and she plays Amber without any substantial character development except for the changes in her surroundings. I'm not a fan of Cornel Wilde, but he acquits himself well here, and Richard Greene is likable as his friend. Of course, George Sanders is fun as the king, though he doesn't get much of a chance to chew the scenery. Otto Preminger's direction is workmanlike but the film never feels as spirited as it should and instead of becoming a bigger-than-life figure like Scarlett O'Hara, Amber winds up a soap opera anti-heroine. I'm glad to have seen this once, but it probably won’t need a second viewing. [TCM]

SECRET AGENT FX 18 (1964)

I suspect that this French/Italian production was among the earliest to ride the big coattails of James Bond. Coming in the first wave of imitators, it's not aiming for parody or comedy (like Our Man Flint or the Matt Helm movies), but seems to be trying to establish its main character as a franchise. There were four more movies with the character Francis Coplan (who was based on the lead in a series of novels and comic books) but each had a different leading man and none made a splash in the States. There are lots of problems with this movie, though if you stick with it to the halfway point, it moves fast enough that you can just go with the flow. The first problem is the poor dubbing. The second problem is the character's name; in print and in the IMDb credits, it’s Francis Coplan, but throughout the film, he is called something that sounds like Cavty or Crabtree. And then there's the incoherent plot, which eventually gets easier to follow.  The summary that follows involves some guesswork on my part.

A man loads a poisoned dart into a cigarette and uses it to kill an artist who apparently has a microfilm copy of some secret American rocket plans. The good guys (La Vieux and his associate whom we mostly see sitting at desks and on the phone) send a young operative named Murphy out to investigate. But the bad guys (led by Noreau and Barter) kill him, throw his body in a barrel, fill it with cement, and send him to the bottom of the sea. La Vieux manages to pull his best man, Coplan, FX-18 (though I don’t think I ever heard him called that in the movie), away from what looks like a getaway with a sex kitten, to sort things out. He's accompanied by Morvil and Alphonso, two cheery, beefy guys who function largely as mild comic relief or as rescuers when Coplan gets in too deep. They’re off to Majorca where Noreau and his baddie buddies are on a yacht, sending spy information to the Russians via a satellite link-up. A beautiful blonde is also on the yacht, and Morvil and Alphonso play up to her to get invited on the yacht. At some point, the microfilm shows up. So does a dark-haired woman. And Coplan is hanging out with Patricia, a spy posing as his wife. Eventually the plotholes recede when the action heats up: asses are kicked, people are killed, a busty woman is tortured, a yacht is blown up, and Coplan races on foot and catches up with a prop plane filled with baddies. The good guys win, of course, though I'm not sure what the prize is.

I admit the reason I sought this out in the first place was the presence of the hunky Ken Clark, who was busy in B-movies throughout the 60s including 12 TO THE MOON and DESERT COMMANDOS, but whose big moment in the sun may have been as Stewpot, a tall, hairy, shirtless sailor in SOUTH PACIFIC. He's perfectly fine here, with a blond Marlboro Man look and an athletic build, and the two sidekicks (Jean-Pierre Laverne and Lorenzo Robledo) are fun. Everyone else is forgettable and/or interchangeable. The men (good and bad) all look like nondescript European guys in business suits; the women have different hair color but similar curvaceous bodies. Names like Mazzerac and Rodriguez are thrown around but I was never sure who they were. Clark is introduced (shirtless) briefly at the beginning, but then he vanishes from the film for half an hour, and it isn't until then that the movie finally picks up. Early on, there’s a fist fight set to a honky-tonk piano soundtrack, and someone refers to white wine as "workingman's whisky." If you choose to accept this mission, the print on YouTube (a dub of a Something Weird video) is the way to go over the Amazon Prime version. It was filmed in widescreen and the YouTube film is presented pan-and-scan, but the Prime film is stretched artificially to seem letterboxed, and it's atrocious. Of course, unless you're a fan of Ken Clark or Euro B-films of the 60s, you should probably not worry about it at all. The top picture of Ken Clark is from the movie; I don't know if the second picture is, but who cares. [YouTube]

A SUMMER PLACE (1959)

Pine Island Inn is a small resort hotel on a private New England island. It's seen better days, but the current owner, Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), has let debts pile up and let the building and grounds go to pot. His wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire) is about at the end of her rope as she tries to keep the resort going through the summer months with help from a small staff and their son Johnny (Troy Donahue). Bart is unhappy to hear that Ken Jorgenson (Richard Egan) has made reservations for the summer for his family. Ken used to be a lowly summer lifeguard on the island, in the employ of the Hunters, but he is now a wealthy research chemist, and Bart is sure that he is coming just to show off his good fortune. But Sylvia is happy to hear the news, partly because of the money they'll get, but also because Ken was her first boyfriend all those years ago and it seems she's always held a bit of a torch for him. For his part, Ken's wife Helen (Constance Ford) is a frigid shrew who is doing everything she can to de-sex their teenage daughter Molly (Sandra Dee). All the elements for a soap opera are in place and very soon, Sylvia is running off to the boathouse for midnight make-out sessions with Ken, and Johnny is having a nice time squiring Molly around the island doing some making out of their own. Eventually, after much anguish, divorces occur and Sylvia marries Ken. That fall and winter, Helen does all she can to keep Molly away from Johnny, but of course, that only makes the two work harder for some time together. Throw in the fact that they are now siblings by marriage and the stage is set for a second act focused on these star-crossed lovers.

I guess this was hot stuff in the late 50s when the Production Code was weakening. Had this been made just a few years earlier, the pre- and extra-marital sex would have either been less explicit or there would have to have been a tragic ending. Of course, I use the word "explicit" here not to refer to actual sex scenes, of which there are none, but just to the fact that we know illicit sex is occurring. What was titillating in 1959 is not now, and I suspect that this movie is much more known for its theme, which was a #1 hit for Percy Faith, than for any avid following the story itself has. Still, this remains watchable, mostly for some of the performances. The actor who is the most fun to watch is Constance Ford who gets to be bitchy and judgmental throughout, and also gets to spit out the word "harlot" at Dorothy McGuire a couple of times. McGuire plays a bit against her goody-goody type here; yes, she has an affair, but she remains a mostly demure and gentle presence. This was Troy Donahue's big breakout role, and his appeal remains a bit mysterious to me. He's attractive but also has the look of dissipation around him, even here at the age of 23. His acting is a bit wooden but he and Dee (both pictured above) have chemistry and their characters remain sympathetic. Egan and Kennedy are acceptable if not exceptional. For a movie with the word "summer" in its title, it doesn't have the feel of a summer film. Most of the first half is indeed set in that season, but the focus for much of that time is the relationship between Egan and McGuire. Once that gets settled and the seasons turn, the focus shifts to the younger people, though we only make it back to summer in the last minute or so of the movie. All the best lines are given to Constance Ford, whose advice to her daughter is, "You have to play a man like a fish." [TCM]

ATOMIC WAR BRIDE (1960)

On what looks like a pleasant spring day in an Eastern European country, young John Johnson (an everyman figure, ya think?) is chatting with a friend about how wonderful life is, and one reason is that he is about to marry young Maria. But suddenly, war is declared and civil defense workers are passing out radiation suits (basically hooded ponchos) for people to wear in case of fallout. John's suit is defective (as, of course, all of them would be against radiation), and when planes come roaring overhead, everyone in the town square drops to the ground, but the planes turn out to be friendly. We soon meet Maria and her family, including her cousin Jack who is very sensitive and faints at talk of bombs falling. John assures everyone that even if there is war, atomic weapons won't be used, and the wedding begins, but bombs start falling all around them. Maria, understandably upset, says, "Everything has changed! The world is horrible! We might die!" to which her level-headed new husband says, "We're in love—it's impossible to die!" The next thing we know, John and Jack are pulled off the streets and conscripted into the army. They are given useless training—lots of finger exercises for firing guns, which the drill instructor says that even a "serious moron" can do—and soon the sensitive Jack drops dead. During an air raid, John winds up in the same shelter as Maria and her family. The army announces that they are going to use atomic weapons against the enemy; John gets involved in an anti-war group, and gets arrested and charged with treason. Suddenly, peace is declared but John is still not off the hook, though he and Maria manage to escape. In the last moments of the film, we discover that the enemy has launched their atomic weapons, so it’s only a matter of time for our loving couple, dirty and tattered and hiding in the ruins.

This Yugoslavian social message film (its original title is "Rat," which means "war") is interesting, if never quite fully involving. There's a bit of a tone problem. At times, it reminded me of the gloomy 80s nuclear war movies like The Day After or Testament, but it has a comically satirical edge that those films didn't, such as the ludicrously extended scene of people practicing pulling their parka hoods on and off and on and off, or the military gun finger exercises, or the fainting cousin, or the hapless optimism of John throughout. The result is that all the expressed emotions feel artificial and we are kept at a distance from the characters, which robs the film's potentially devastating ending of some of its power. But it’s worth seeing as a document of the times. Pictured are Ewa Krzyzewska as Maria and Antun Vrdoljak as John. [YouTube]

DESTINATION TOKYO (1943)

On Christmas Eve 1941, the crew of the submarine Copperfish learn from their captain (Cary Grant) that they'll be leaving San Francisco the next day on a secret mission in the Pacific. When Grant opens his sealed orders the next day, he discovers that they are to head up to the Aleutian Islands where they will pick up John Ridgely, a meteorologist, and deliver him right into Tokyo Bay. Ridgely's mission: to take weather readings in preparation for the upcoming Doolittle raid on Tokyo. The rest of the film covers their successful trip to Tokyo and their tense journey back home. We get to know several of the men: the bragging womanizer (John Garfield), the short feisty Greek (Dane Clark), the cook (Alan Hale), the pharmacist (William Prince), and the new kid (Robert Hutton). Along the way, the crew plays a tense game of hide-and-seek with Japanese ships, navigates carefully through a mine field, is attacked with depth charges, and engages with enemy planes. The new kid even has an attack of appendicitis and the pharmacist has to play amateur surgeon to save his life (something inspired by a real life incident, as was the sub's mission). At two hours and fifteen minutes, this is overlong, and it's the action scenes that feel the most padded out—something current superhero movies suffer from. But some real tension is built up in a few scenes, notably when the crew is trying to keep quiet while enemy ships float above them. As far as I know, this is Cary Grant's only war action movie and he does a nice job, as do all the actors. Other familiar faces in the supporting cast include Warner Anderson, Whit Bissell, Tom Tully, and John Forsythe. The stereotyping present in most WWII movies is kept to a minimum, and fewer men die than you might expect. The three on the left in the photo are Garfield, Hutton, and Clark. [DVD]